Author Description

This book critically reviews the developments and achievements of systematics in the 50 years since the foundation of the Systematics Association in 1937, and more particularly since the appearance of The New Systematics, edited for the Association by Sir Julian Huxley in 1940. Botanists, microbiologists, palaeontologists, and zoologists--theoreticians and practitioners alike--consider fundamental aspects of the subject and the directions in which it might develop into the next century. The result is a description of a highly active subject adapting concepts and practices to accommodate exciting new information from expanding areas of research--one which, however, also needs to take increased note of the requirements of its users. The main challenge for systematics in the coming decades emerges as the need to re-establish its central unifying position as the keystone of biology.